Ruud Gullit

Where is Ruud Gullit now?

After a distinguished career across Europe where he won the European Cup twice and titles in Holland and Italy, Ruud Gullit decided to end his playing days in London with Chelsea in 1995.

After a fantastic first season playing under Glenn Hoddle at Chelsea, things changed considerably in the summer of 1996 when Hoddle left the club to take the England national team job with Gullit replacing him as player manager.

Although he had some success in this role winning the FA Cup and finishing a respectable sixth place in the Premier League, he was sacked in 1997 after a disagreement with the board and moved on to manage Newcastle United.

His time at Newcastle United was full of controversy and he fell out of favour with the fans when he dropped the team’s top scorer Alan Shearer and club captain Rob Lee.

Gullit resigned from Newcastle United at the start of the 1999-2000 season after a 2-1 loss to rivals Sunderland where he left regular starting strikers Shearer and Duncan Ferguson on the bench.

After he left Newcastle United Gullit had other managerial roles at Feyenoord and LA Galaxy and he was manager of Russian Premier League side Terek Grozny for six months in 2011.

In September 2016, Ruud Gullit released his book How to Watch Footballhis masterclass on how to ‘read’ the game.

The book looks at the technical side of the game and what you should watch out for in respect to tactical decisions and formations.

Amongst the many talking points within the book, Gullit explains the secret of the tiki-taka style of playing, as well as explaining why one striker can be better than three strikers.

Jam packed with Gullit’s acute insights, original observations and talking points, How to Watch Football will be the go to book for any armchair pundit.

Ruud Gullit now makes regular appearances in the media as a very well respected pundit for channels such as Sky Sports, beIN SPORTS and the BBC.

In July 2016, Gullit along with former international team mates Marco Van Basten and Frank Rijkaard were appointed by the Chinese FA to overhaul the country’s youth football system.

In an ambitious project, the three Dutch football legends will be tasked with establishing a new training regime across 200 schools in Beijing and training 1200 PE teachers to become football specialists.

A month later, Gullit was appointed as a coach of the Dutch national team alongside his former team mate Danny Blind.

He left the role before he even got started after contract negotiations with the Dutch FA broke down after they claimed he wanted to replace Blind after the current coach’s tenure ended.

Gullit said that this was completely untrue and what he actually wanted was a guarantee that once Blind left he could renegotiate his position.